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| Interview with Vicious Byte |
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First, could you tell about your game career? How it started?
Henrik Schmidt: I started with a Commodore C64 around 1980. I did no programming, just
played games. I still remember golden oldies like Elite or Silent Service by Sid
Meier.
The Vicious Byte logo
Some years later I purchased an Amiga 2000 with a 20 MB hard disk for lots of money. That time,
I discovered a small shareware game, called Mechforce. Its graphics and sound were very
simple, but the gameplay was brilliant. I played it for tons of hours and still remember the
nights three friends and I gathered in front of the monitor.
In the early 90's, I followed the trend and bought my first personal computer (PC). By then,
Vicious Byte (my games company) was founded for one reason: we would like to do our own version
of Mechforce, callled Titans of Steel.
Titans of Steel in action
Kai Sausmikat: I've always been a fan of the 'Champions' roleplaying game and after having
programmed a few little 'just for fun' games on the Amiga I decided in 1990 to make a game based
on the champions rules. I started programming on the Amiga and half finished a 'Champions
Character Creation Module'. Then I worked on the game engine and realized that the Amiga was to
slow for the graphical ideas I had.
I stopped the project and started it again 5 years later in 1995 when I got my first 486/Dx50.
This time I decided not to try to work it out alone and called my old friend Henrik Schmidt by
phone to ask him wether he'd like to join in that project. Funny, after this phonecall I agreed
to forget my ideas and join him in his project he just had started. It was an old dream both of
us had - to redo the old amiga game Mechforce by Ralph Reed. I'm happy that I decided to
join the Titans of Steel project and that we succeded in making it version 1.2 now.
I still got the idea of making a Champions game and will hopefully get Henrik Schmidt to join me
some day, but till then I'll keep working with him on Titans of Steel. I hope that we'll
have a map and mission editor some day.
Could you give a description of Titans of Steel?
Henrik Schmidt: Titans of Steel is a tactical combat simulator, spiced up with
role playing elements. The player is building/managing a team of giant fighting robots, the
titans and their pilots, the jocks. The game does consist of three modules: Headquarter,
Factory and the Battle Engine.
The evaluation of a titan
Combat is resolved on a hex based landscape. Up to four teams can do combat, either
hotseat or in a LAN (local area network). The battle module does include a generic AI
(artificial intelligence): each titan can be played by the computer. We use a unique turn based
system, which was introduced by Mechforce. It's very satisfying in multiplayer games;
each player is involved a lot, but has enough time to think.
The player can design own titans, the factory does feature lots of weapons and other systems,
like shields or scanners.
The factory in Titans of Steel
The headquarter is used to manage the teams, recruit new jocks and buy or sell titans. The jocks
are described by 7 personal attributes and 19 skills. They gain experience during combat, which
can be used to increase their skills.
Could you tell about the team that developed Titans of Steel? Who wrote the code, who
did the graphics, etc.?
Henrik Schmidt: Vicious Byte is formed by Kai Sausmikat, Steffan Vosgerau, Eric Petersen
and me.
Kai did the code of the factory module and a lot of design stuff. Steffan is our artist, sad
enough his time is very limited nowadays. Eric joined Vicious Byte in 1999, he is responsible
for the sounds.
I did the code for the battle module and designed the rule system. I also try to manage the old
code of the headquarter module.
Kai Sausmikat: I want to thank Steffan for his artwork on Titans of Steel, Eric
for his work on sounds and music, "Rosary" for giving the game something special with her
charismatic voice and last but not least all the Titans of Steel fans out there who
supported us with good ideas improving the gameplay and design.
Which applications are used and how long does it take to make a game like Titans of
Steel?
Henrik Schmidt: I developped the battle module on an Unix Sun Workstation. Therefore, I
was in need if a cross platform compiler, which I found with the GNU C compilers and its port to
DOS, the DJGPP.
Fortunatly, there was also a portable graphics library, called JLIB. Now, I was able to write
code on the workstation and recompile it on my personal computer.
Together with the portable sound library (SEAL), we're now also able to support Windows
95/98/2000/NT, as well as Linux. I have to add that all these tools are free, thanks to those
who made them available.
The game was a very big effort, I guess that thousends of hours were spend to make it possible.
Since 1996, at least two people are doing work on it.
Are you going to make more computer games in the future?
Henrik Schmidt: I can't think of doing another game at the moment. Titans of Steel
is still not finished and there are lots of ideas to improve the game. We want to add Internet
play, missions, more equipment, different terrain... etc.
What's you favorite DOS or Windows game?
Henrik Schmidt: Well, honestly I must admit that Titans of Steel is my favorite
game. I'm not only doing it, I'm also playing it. I wrote it for this reason :)
Another DOS game I like very much is Masters of Magic. At the moment, I'm also playing
Age of Kings (Age of Empires II) by Ensemble Studios. It's my favorite realtime
strategy game, though I generally prefer turn based ones.
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DOS Games
